The VFA reported that farmers in the Mekong delta, Vietnam ’s largest rice bowl, have harvested over 210,000 ha of rice out of the total cultivated area of 1.6 million ha in the 2010-2011 summer-autumn crop with an average yield of 5 tonnes per hectare, up 0.2 tonnes over the yield in the same period last year.

The provinces of An Giang and Can Tho saw even higher average yields of 6-6.5 tonnes per hectare.

Normal rice was purchased at prices from 5,800 to VND6,000 per kilogramme, meanwhile the price of high quality rice type was between 6,300 and VND6,800 per kilogramme. As a result, farmers earned profits of 30-35 per cent compared to production cost.